


The Lounge

by poppunkwolf



Series: The Danger in Your Fingertips [2]
Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Lesbian Character, F/F, Murder, Romance, Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8437537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppunkwolf/pseuds/poppunkwolf
Summary: “We can do complicated."It’s not even the self-invite that irks her the most, or the actual wink that accompanies it as these two men pull up chairs to their table. It’s the cocky arrogance dripping from their utterly unremarkable faces, how easy it is to discern that they think they’re God’s gift, even to someone who could not be any less available or interested. She realizes they won’t be easy to get rid of.Annalise and Eve try a new tactic against the men at the bar. This work falls into the same universe as "The Drive In" but they each stand alone and do not require you to read the other.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warning and clarification: This fic involves the topic of rape, but it does not occur in this story. It does have graphic non-sexual violence.

 

“We can do complicated.”

It’s not even the self-invite that irks her the most, or the actual wink that accompanies it as these two men pull up chairs to their table. It’s the cocky arrogance dripping from their utterly unremarkable faces, how easy it is to discern that they think they’re God’s gift, even to someone who could not be any less available or interested. She realizes they won’t be easy to get rid of. The one with blue eyes leers at her and then he snaps his fingers at the waitress in the distance.

Eve hopes their waitress will ignore him, but the lady responds to his beckoning with a restrained smile. Eve is embarrassed to even be associated with them, and wants to get up and move as far from their companions as possible but is held back twistedly by her own social graces, and by her desire to be easygoing so that she can just have fun with Annalise.

“I’ll have a martini, and our lady friends…” He trails off, gesturing for the two of them to fill in the blank.

She and Annalise send each other a look. After a beat, the other guy jumps in. “Martinis for everyone,” he declares.

“We’ve actually had enough to drink, but thanks,” Eve says, taking Annalise’s hand. “We’re just going to be on the dance floor.”

“We’ll save your drinks,” the shorter one says.

 “My girlfriend and I are just trying to spend the evening alone together. It was great to meet you, and hopefully we’ll see you around,” Eve says, wondering as the diplomacy spills from her lips, when she became interested in coddling strange mens’ feelings.

“It’s okay, we’re not going anywhere,” replies finger snaps, as if he’s _assuring_ them of something they _want_ , and Eve wraps her arm around Annalise and leads her to the dance floor.

“That was annoying,” Annalise says as they hit the floor and fall in rhythm to a fast paced dance track. “But not the worst thing.”

“I hope it wasn’t an overstep,” Eve says, dancing close. “That I said you’re my girlfriend.”

“I like it,” Annalise says. “And it made sense as something to drive them away, especially if it had worked.” She made a side gesture with her head and Eve glanced back to the men, who were watching the two of them. “They’re treating us like a show now.”

“Gross,” Eve sighs. “But for our sake, let’s ignore them. I get to see you again, and I’m happy and ready to drink and dance. A pair of testicle-shaped mouth breathers can’t ruin it.”

They continue to dance to the beat. Annalise smiles and Eve can sense something on the tip of her tongue, a comment she is holding back. She smiles too. “What’s on your mind?”

Annalise spins into her arms and whispers, hesitation and shyness on the edge of her tone, “What if we…”

Annalise cannot say it out loud, but the coyness and the glint in her eye tells Eve exactly what Annalise is too shy – and too heedful in a crowd full of people – to say out loud.

“No,” Eve whispers back, but she can’t help but smile. “ _What? No_. We were so young and crazy the last time we did that. I can’t even remember the last time I felt that way.”

Annalise puts her hand on the small of Eve’s back so as to keep her close. “Those feelings don’t just go away.”

“I know… I know. But where would we even go? It’s not like the days when we did it in the backseat of your car.” Eve looks back at the men, sizing them up. They are still watching, but are semi-distracted, speaking to each other.

“But it could be. Be spontaneous with me. It’ll be liberating.”

Eve laughs and leans in to put her face in Annalise’s shoulder. “You’re crazy, you know that?” She kisses her passionately. She is about to say no. She is about to stroke Annalise’s face and tell her, “Let’s just focus on each other and enjoy a night without cares.” But over Annalise’s shoulder, she sees. She sees the waitress bring the martinis to the table and leave. The men each survey their surroundings. She almost thinks she imagines the tiny vial poking from under finger snaps’ sleeve, the droplets that he puts in the two full glasses with lightning swiftness. He pockets the vial. The friend glances around, then uses the straws to quickly stir the drinks.

 The blood drains from Eve’s face, and her feet feel clumsier than if she had actually drank something. When she whispers it to Annalise, Annalise plays it cool, turns, and ends up looking in their direction with the briefest glance. Annalise had been enjoying her night, full of carefree bubbles and flirtation, relishing Eve’s attention despite their insistence that this was… casual.

But now Annalise has gone to another place in her mind, no longer dancing, just clinging to her in the middle of the dance floor.

Eve touches Annalise’s face, calming her own inner rage at the two men, knowing that how she chooses to defend this woman whom she would do anything for, cannot be reckless. She pulls Annalise close by the waist, kisses her forehead. “I’m here. I’m going to protect you. Okay?”

Annalise nods.

“We don’t have to interact with them at all. We can call the manager and the police. We can tell someone and then we can get out of here.”

Annalise says, “That makes sense. They could get charged and then disbarred, which would destroy them. And it would serve them right.”

“True. But we both know there are other ways to end someone. You wanted a conquest tonight… let’s do it.”

Eve smiles as the fire flickers in Annalise’s eyes.

 

They come back to the table and greet the men. It’s staggeringly easy for Eve to stand before them and draw their attention with a few tosses of her dark hair.

“See this?” she says, taking finger snaps’ hand and tracing her own index finger across the center of his palm. Both of them are fixed on her, desire in their eyes, humoring her with their patronizing smiles. “It’s your life line.”

“So you’re a partner at a firm and you moonlight as what, a witch?”

“You can call me a type of necromancer.”

“So how long do I have to live?” he smirks, running his eyes up and down her.

“Well,” she says, “I’m not a perfect fortune teller. But most people are running on karma. If they’ve done good deeds, they have nothing to worry about. What kind of deeds have you done?”

This is when anyone with intuition would question her word choice, the almost confrontation edging her tone, ask themselves if she had seen. But they’re running on arrogance, on the dauntless condition of being surrounded by prey but never by predators. A shark believes he has nothing to fear.

His friend speaks jokingly. “He’s got some skeletons in his closet, but don’t we all?”

“We don’t,” Eve says, looking at Annalise, who had only needed that brief moment to covertly switch the drinks. “It’s an awful place to store a body, right baby?”

The men laugh and laugh, bringing their own poison to their lips.

 

They swoop the men out of there while they can still stand. When she sees dark eyes start to dull, to blink slowly, Eve grabs him by the tie around his neck and leads him to the car, hoping his friend whose drink is fuller will not be trouble.

“I should drive,” says the friend. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to…” He seems to forget his words. Eve pushes him into the backseat. When his friend is seated as well, she gets in the driver’s side and shares a mischievous smile with Annalise as she pulls out of the parking lot and onto the road to Annalise’s house.

Through the mirror Eve sees the man who is not finger snaps turn his eyes to Eve, accusation in a gaze that would be astonished were it not for the fading fire in them. “What did you do to us?”

_What did you do to us?_

The audacity of the question makes her want to take his own tie and strangle him with it. The fact that she is driving may be the only reason she doesn’t. It feels strange to be using the worst of men’s own deceits against them. But it’s also poetry, the sweet, appealing knowledge that the world would rid itself of one less monster in the night. Who had they hurt before herself and Annalise? Who would it have been after? She cannot wait for them to suffer. It used to give her life to watch that very thing draining from someone’s eyes, their tender flesh against her knife, their blood seeping as they shifted from a menace to a corpse. She wants that sensation back. Annalise had been right.

Those feelings don’t just go away.

They stumble into Annalise’s house, using their strength to hold up the collapsing weight of their companions.

“Basement,” Annalise directs.

“We’re going to your base…” the one with dark eyes slurs. He promptly collapses to the floor in the entrance hallway of Annalise’s home.

“I hope it’s a kinky type dungeon,” the other says, slinking like a dropped marionette.

They drag the two bodies to the entrance of the basement. “It isn’t,” Annalise answers, then kicks him down the staircase, sending him tumbling all the way to the bottom, the most satisfying sounds of cracking and breaking punctuating his fall.

 

They set up a camera so they can see when their companions awake.

“What if someone finds the footage?” Eve asks, taking a seat on Annalise’s living room couch.

Annalise shakes her head, sitting next to her with two glasses, a bottle of vodka, and a pitcher of lemonade. “It’s not a recording. It just allows us to view them live, so we don’t have to sit and watch their bitch ass faces for the next four hours waiting for them to regain consciousness.”

“This is why I was shy about doing this again. It feels like there are so many new ways to get caught.”

“I’m on top of this,” Annalise assures her, pouring the two glasses. “Oliver showed me how to dissemble any tracking in phones, which I did back at the lounge while you distracted them. Nice job by the way. It took everything in me not to laugh at their idiot, uncomprehending expressions while you directly told them they were going to die.”

“Cheers to Oliver, our sweet, cherubic accomplice,” Eve quips.

“He may be innocent but I doubt he thought I’d use this knowledge for a good, legal, wholesome reason. And I’ll get him to take the lounge security footage. And as for witnesses, no one will possibly remember their generic faces.” She takes a sip of the drink.

“I know we’ve done this tipsy before,” Eve said. “But I don’t want to drink at all. I want them to piss themselves seeing just how much control I have over them.”

“Suit yourself,” Annalise says, bringing the drink back to her lips.

“Are you okay?” Eve asks.

“What do you mean, okay?”

“Something bad could have happened to us. It’s okay to be upset.”

“I’m glad we’re doing this,” Annalise replies, setting the drink down. “It’s justice. I’m more than okay.”

Eve strokes Annalise’s hair. “I can take charge. I can give this to you. Like a gift.”

Annalise laughs a little. “I do miss the days when you’d surprise me with the corpses of my enemies.”

Eve smiles, thinking of the DA back in law school – the first time she’d shared this part of herself with Annalise. “Is that a yes?”

Annalise nods, pulls her close, and kisses her lips as she runs her hands down Eve’s waist. Eve returns the sentiment, deepening the kiss and letting Annalise lay her back on the couch. Annalise’s eager fingers slide up beneath Eve’s dress. Eve arches, giving in to the touch as she breathes heavily in anticipation. After a moment she breaks the kiss, but keeps Annalise pulled close. "I'm down for this," she says. "But I want to double check how you feel."

Annalise smiles at her, eyes heavy with desire, and nods. "I feel good, and taken care of."

Eve smiles too, and Annalise's fingertips continue their crawl up her dress, caressing the edges of her underwear. "Now can I help you out of these?"

She nods and they continue exploring, the light laughter - the joy and excitement to be reunited - descending to sultry moaning as their passion ascends. They have quite a bit of time, and she plans to use it to the fullest.

 

They always rifle through wallets and check names so that they can laugh over champagne when the news comes on: _area man missing_. The one with brown eyes is named Tim. It’s Finger Snaps Richard that first stirs from unconsciousness, his blue eyes opening and focusing indignantly upon them under the dim light in the basement.

His face betrays an almost bratty outrage when he realizes he is tied up. He sits in his chair, each arm and leg duct taped to their respective corner, his back taped as well. He looks around at the tarp beneath him, and at the sight of his friend tied just like him a few feet to his right.

Eve watches his eyes, how they focus upon the sight of herself and Annalise lounging on the love seat facing him. He looks at the butcher knife she holds in her hand, as she sits cross-legged, her other arm extended across Annalise’s shoulders.

“You’re not gonna do anything with that,” he says. No “Where am I?” No pleading. Cockiness dialed up to absurdity. “I get it,” he continues. “I did a bad thing. But I know you don’t want to use that knife, you’re not going to actually kill me, so end this theater project and let me go. I won’t tell a soul.”

Let _me_ go, he’d said. Would he accept leaving poor Tim here for them to dismantle? She’d assumed that two people attempting rape together were good enough friends not to leave each other for dead. Did their contempt for women spill into other relationships in their lives, leaving them unable to stand up even for each other?                                                                                     

“You may be right,” Eve says. She notes the relief in his eyes, ever so subtle as he tries to remain composed. She maneuvers from her embrace with Annalise and taps her index finger lightly along the blade of her knife. “Maybe I won’t do anything with this knife. Because you see...” she stands and approaches him.

He withdraws as much as he can, tied to the chair. He tries to remain composed. She holds the knife to his throat.

“This knife is not my favorite,” Eve explains casually. “I had another knife I used all the time. And when you get away with murder so often, you become a creature of habit, you get into routines. Why fix what isn’t broken? So I had this other knife. I would hide it in Annalise’s car, or in my own. The kills were amazing with _that_ knife. But now I have this dilemma, because this is just a standard, ordinary kitchen knife, you know? It’s not just the absence of the knife I got rid of years ago, either.” She taps the knife in her hand. “It’s because I love habit, but killing is so personal. I mean, I’m the last person you’re ever going to see. I should at least make it special, right? And this knife isn’t for you.” She caresses his cheek with the flat end. “This one is so clean cutting. It’s sharp. It’s brutal. Imagine getting sliced in the throat with this. You’d die in a few minutes, and the thing is, you don’t deserve that. You deserve for this to last. Baby?” She turns to Annalise. She approaches her and holds the knife out to her, handle first. “I’m gonna go get the other knives.” She turns to look back at Richard. “It’ll be like a product testing party. And you’ll be my guinea pig.”

She leans in to kiss Annalise, who looks at her with burning desire and affection and then glances at Richard smugly as she takes the knife and twirls it slowly in her hand.

“C’mon. Please…” Richard begins to cry so much sooner than Eve expected, his whimpering playing her out as she saunters up the stairs.

 

When she returns with the wooden knife holder, Tim is still unconscious, but lesser so, his head turning, his eyes blinking, but showing no real ability to tune in to his surroundings. She had heard Richard’s voice but he hushed as he saw her descending the stairs.

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Annalise says, talking to Eve but looking back at Richard as if disappointed. “He was trying to negotiate with me. He thinks I’m the soft one, the one who is somehow more likely to let them go.”

“Oh, Annalise has more kills than me,” Eve informs him with a lofty, casual matter-of-factness. “Remember that hiker?”

“That hiker was a dumbass who had it coming,” Annalise says, sipping her vodka. “He showed up near us on every trail for two days, _and_ camped next to our camp ground.”

“I was so annoyed that she brought me hiking in the first place,” Eve says chattily, sitting back on the love seat and taking Annalise’s hand. “She’s from Memphis but I’m a city girl and unless it’s the blood of some awful man, I’m not a fan of getting dirty.”

“She’s not joking,” Annalise confirms in the same conversational tone. “She would have been the kind of old-timey girl you had to put your jacket on a puddle for.”

“But that guy was just… creepy. The way he was always in our peripheral. And meanwhile I’m covered in bug bites and sick of sleeping on the floor and just literally not a happy camper.” She smiles at Annalise. “So you made it better. You delivered him to me all tied up.” Eve leans in closer to Annalise, just taking a moment to gaze at her with adoration, and then kisses her sweetly on the cheek. “I already knew you were the one before then, but that moment meant a lot to me.” She turns her attention back to Richard. “It was the moment Annalise gave me permission to go after men just for creeping me out. Cuz like, I would have wanted to prove him guilty of something. Even something like disrespecting her. We both went to law school – _Harvard_. And it just went against my training to presume that a guy was guilty just for being suspicious. But Annalise? She doesn’t give a damn. She gave me permission to kill whoever I wanted. I killed that guy, and _he_ didn’t even roofie us. I give you this context to let you know that there’s very little you can do to convince me to spare you.” Eve picks up the wooden block that holds Annalise’s knife collection. “You frightened the woman I love. You upset her. Don’t you think you deserve to pay for that?”

It is always fun planting the suggestion in victims’ minds that they could perhaps walk free, and then asking them questions. Questions they always take so seriously, think so hard about, treat as life or death. It is never life or death, because there is only ever death.

To her surprise, Richard nods. “Yes.”

“You _admit_ that you deserve to pay?”

Richard nods again, submission in his terrified gaze. He is smart enough not to ruin this by being too wordy.

Perfect.

She circles around him, grabs the back of his chair, and pushes him closer to Annalise in the love seat. “Then I want you to tell her you’re sorry.”

Annalise sets her drink down, crosses her legs, and looks at Richard like she has drained every measure of arrogance from his worthless body. Eve is so pleased to see this in her, to see she is no longer afraid. And she used to be so shy about accepting gifts.

“I’m sorry,” Richard says. His tone is earnest. He is a lawyer and he is not an idiot, so his voice is brimming with sincerity. “I didn’t understand. But I get it now, and everything in me is disgusted by my own actions. Tim and I will never hurt another person as long as we live.”

It’s beautiful. Eve smiles as she delivers her next words to him. She revels in the fear in his eyes, the shrewd, calculating, clearly selfish, but unveiled horror as he processes her next question.

“Who should I kill first? Him, or you?”

She watches the wheels careening in his head. Would she do the opposite of what he said? (She could feel him thinking). If he said “him,” would she retaliate for his selfishness? Would it be better to die first?

She decides to spice the cauldron. “If you answer in any way other than one or the other option, I will make this twice as long and painful for whichever of you I do kill first.”

He considers this. He looks at his friend, who is still floating through the state of confusion and helplessness the two of them are, she imagines, disgustingly familiar with, for the unknown number of times they have kept women in this state.

“Kill me,” Richard says, his voice cracking. “Kill me first.”

She wouldn’t know what had made him choose it. The selfish aversion to watching another person gutted, knowing he would be next. The desire to preserve his friend's life a little longer.

She approaches Tim and hovers the knife above his chest. She looks at Richard, who drastically averts his face, but then brings his eyes back to the sight, like an onlooker at the site of a car crash.

She slices through the duct tape, breaking Tim from his constraints.

Richard’s eyes light in hope. “You’re setting him free?”

Eve laughs. “You know better than that. You know what you did to him. He’s not going to be able to walk out of here.”

On cue, Tim slumps to the floor and stays there, looking at Richard, fighting to get up, but barely moving.

“What he _does_ get to do,” Eve said, “is watch helplessly. Like the two of you have made people do.”

“I didn’t know,” Richard said. “I didn’t know what I was doing when we drugged you and we’d never done it before. It was a horrible idea and I regretted it as soon as we put those things in your drink. I was afraid to stop you from drinking them because I thought I’d get in trouble with the law, but we weren’t going to hurt you. I’ve learned my lesson and I’m sorry. If you let me go, I won’t speak of this ever again.”

What were those stages of grief?

“Bargaining,” she scoffs.

“It’s true.”

“See, you’ve made a few mistakes,” Eve says. “The first? Assuming I’m naïve. Then, assuming I have a soft spot. Third? Assuming I don’t hate the sound of your voice. I’d make it the first thing I cut out of you, but then you’d ruin it by dying far too early.” She picks up the knife holder, and takes the chef knife, mid-sized, solid, and firm in her hand. She slices his cheek. He screams. She drops it to the floor, and next draws the paring knife, small and perfect for causing non-fatal injuries. She jams it into his side, and he lets out an agonized wail that fills the basement. His body is unable to collapse against the duct tape restraints, but he slumps weakly, letting out guttural, anguished groans. “The cleaver is one of my favorites,” she says, as she pulls it from the slot. It is massive, weighty. She takes his hand, almost as if reassuring him. She looks at Annalise, who is leaning on the edge of her seat. Then she raises the cleaver in the air and brings it down forcefully against his wrist. The impact is delicious, the sound of his voice echoing through the basement, overpowering the crunch of his bones. She whacks and whacks at his hand until it is severed from his body.

She turns to Annalise again, whose eyes are brimming.

“Richie, be quiet,” she admonishes him, then turns to Annalise. “Everything okay?”

Annalise nods. “I was just thinking about what you’re willing to do to show that you love me.”

Eve approaches Annalise, cupping her cheek, smudging it with blood. “You’re doing this for me. You’re giving this to me too. I wasn’t going to do it again. You always make me brave.”

They share a kiss as their victim’s screams take the background.

Eve takes the carving knife, the perfect one for taking out an esophagus. She kisses Annalise again before going back to silence Richard for good and move on to the second body on the floor who can only watch, bruised from his fall, weak from his own drugs, as he awaits the reckoning he deserves.


End file.
